full laziness

<functional programming>

A transformation, described by Wadsworth in 1971, which ensures that subexpressions in a function body which do not depend on the function's arguments are only evaluated once. E.g. each time the function 

 f x = x + sqrt 4
is applied, (sqrt 4) will be evaluated. Since (sqrt 4) does not depend on x, we could transform this to: 

 f x = x + sqrt4
 sqrt4 = sqrt 4
We have replaced the dynamically created (sqrt 4) with a single shared constant which, in a graph reduction system, will be evaluated the first time it is needed and then updated with its value.

See also fully lazy lambda lifting, let floating.

Last updated: 1994-11-09

Nearby terms:

full-duplex Switched Ethernet ♦ full laziness ♦ full-motion video

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